


night eight

by openended



Series: Advent Calendar 2012 [10]
Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Gen, Hanukkah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-16
Updated: 2012-12-16
Packaged: 2017-11-21 05:49:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/594157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openended/pseuds/openended
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She nearly forgets about Hanukkah this year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	night eight

Susan nearly forgets about Hanukkah this year. It sneaks up on her, and not in the typical way that it sneaks up on her, remembering at the end of November that she should probably check a calendar in case it’s really early this year. She’s been busy and distracted, what with war on the horizon and Talia vanishing and the Drazi thinking she’s some sort of actual cultural leader. 

John mentions putting up a tree, the tiny ugly plastic thing he acquired on Io and has been dragging around the galaxy with him since, and hoping he could find a spare box of lights somewhere on the station. She leads him to a Christmas merchant in the Zocalo – and points him to the shelf behind the blow up Vorlon snowmen, and does so with a look that demands he not ask how she knows this information. She loiters, aimlessly picking up trinkets absolutely no one needs. She pauses in her boredom and blinks at the box of Hanukkah candles, only one remaining. A glance at the merchant’s calendar confirms that she’s been sidetracked by work for nearly too long; Hanukkah starts tonight. She buys the candles and wishes John good luck with the lights and rushes back to her quarters.

She hopes she can actually find the menorah.

* * *

On the first night, she spends an hour cleaning the menorah before she even opens the box of candles. The tiny candle holders are covered in wax from years past and she’s had a hell of a day and needs something to do that isn’t just sitting and thinking about how much work there is. She’ll never get it completely clean of dripped wax, but it’s soon shiny again and the candles will fit. She tries to light the candle slowly, and speed up the prayer a little bit, but her timing’s off, as always. The candle seems so lonely by itself on the end.

On the second night, she argues with Londo right up until she reaches her quarters. She curtly bids him a good evening, secretly wishing him everything but, and smiles sarcastically at him as her door closes in his face. She sighs and rolls her neck and pulls out five broken candles before she finds a candle still in one piece. She breaks another one trying to jam it into the holder and before she can throw the entire thing across the room in a fit of rage and frustration, she closes her eyes. Three deep breaths later and she’s calmed back down to a point where she won’t accidentally set her kitchen on fire. She’s still angry at everything, though less likely to do something about it. The wick on the second candle sparks worryingly before it settles down.

She misses nights three through five. It’s a 72-hour string of crises and when she does end up in her quarters, it’s at a truly bizarre time and she doesn’t trust herself to stay awake until the candles have fully burned down. Given the way things are going lately, she doesn’t fully trust the candles not to tip over all on their own while she isn’t watching.

On the sixth night, she teaches G’Kar how to play dreidel because he’s interested in Human winter holidays and he’s genuinely delighted when he wins the full pot of minor coins. He enjoys the chocolate gelt she gives him, and carefully smoothes out the foil and folds it into perfect squares. When she was nine, she figured out how simplistic and luck-based dreidel really was and started to find the game annoying, but G’Kar leaves with a smile and a laugh and she’s grinning too when his pockets jingle.

On the seventh night, she has to explain Hanukkah to Delenn. She reads up on the holiday first, because John’s told her about how many questions Delenn had about Christmas and she knows she’s missing a few important details. Delenn takes the miracle of one night of oil lasting for eight at face value, and Susan suspects that it doesn’t have quite as much to do with faith managing as it does with Delenn’s transformation. If she can turn from full Minbari into half-Human, half-Minbari, having oil last longer than it should doesn’t seem quite so far off.

On the eighth night, she’s alone. She curls into the corner of her couch and watches the candles burn, with all the lights in her quarters turned off. She misses Talia, and ISN has just reported on Keffer’s Starfury footage, and everything is going to officially fall apart tomorrow morning. She shifts, and the candles flicker with the moving air. The menorah’s cheery and bright, and illuminates far more in the darkness than she thought it would.


End file.
